Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Mystic Cardsharks are proficient with Daggers, Darts, Throwing Cards, and light armor, although they suffer from arcane spell failure while wearing it.

Spells: Mystic Cardsharks cast spells using a special deckbuilding scheme. After a full 8-hour rest, the Mystic Cardshark summons a number of cards (which cannot be identified from the back, but are not magical) that correspond to his spells. He cannot pick more cards for each spell than his Maximum Number of Each Card value. Now he has the opportunity to apply metamagic to his cards. He then shuffles those cards together, says some magical words on them, and draws a number of cards equal to his maximum hand size (normally his Base Hand Size plus his Charisma modifier).

The Mystic Cardshark can only play spells that are in his hand. Whenever he plays a spell, the card that corresponds to that spell disappears in a puff of smoke and he may draw a new card from the deck as a move action (unless he has Quick Draw or some other such ability). It is physically impossible to draw a card from the deck while there are a number of cards equal to his maximum hand size out of it.

The Save DC's for a Mystic Cardshark's spells are Wisdom-based.

Mystic Cardsharks know all Sorcerer, Druid, and Cleric spells.

The spell level of spells the Mystic Cardshark casts are not necessarily identical to their spell levels for the Sorcerer, Druid, or Cleric. If the spell is a Sorcerer spell, the Mystic Cardshark uses that spell level. If not but it is a Cleric spell, the Mystic Cardshark uses that spell level. Otherwise, the Mystic Cardshark uses its spell level for Druids.

Universal, Divination, Illusion, and Conjuration spells are cast as though they were one spell level lower.

Evocation and Necromancy spells are cast as though they were one spell level higher.

Deckbuilding Limitations: Once the Mystic Cardshark can cast multiple different levels of spells, he is no longer allowed to have more than one-third of the cards in his deck correspond to spells of the highest level he can cast.

Mulligan: At fourth level, the Mystic Cardshark gains the ability to Mulligan once per day. To do so, he shuffles his hand into his deck and draws up to his maximum hand size as a full-round action.

Topdeck: At level 21, the Mystic Cardshark can, without looking at it, declare that he will cast the top card of his deck. He ignores all XP and component costs for that card, and casts it as a swift action.

Unlimited Duplicates: At level 23, the Mystic Cardshark may put any number of copies of each card into his deck.

Psychic Powers: At level 25, the Mystic Cardshark learns all Psion powers of level 8 or lower as though they were Sorcerer spells of one level higher.

Unlimited Casting: At level 27, whenever the Mystic Cardshark casts a spell, a new copy of the card corresponding to that spell appears on the bottom of the deck.

Card Searching: At level 29, instead of drawing a card, the Mystic Cardshark may spend 1 minute searching through his deck for a card and putting it into his hand. He then shuffles the deck.

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) can research Mystic Cardsharks to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.